How To Buy Infants’ Best Educational Toys?

1. The visual perception of infants is limited, so make sure to buy toys in bright, contrasting colors.

2. Activity centers and crib mobiles fascinate newborns. Some mobiles come with an adjustable height option so that you can make sure mobile is in your baby’s visual range.

3. Babies up to six months old have very limited motor skills and love high-pitched sounds. Chimes, rattles, teething rings, colorful pictures and soft blocks will stimulate your baby at this age.

4. For babies between six to nine months old, you can buy building blocks, activity boxes and cubes, stacking ring cones, and bath toys. Try to vary textures of toys.

5. Between age of nine months and a year, babies are old enough to enjoy and learn from toys such as nesting cups, push and pull toys, large crayons, spades, and stacking blocks.

6. It always helps to keep in mind that you do not need fancy and expensive toys to stimulate your infant. You might bring home a very trendy toy for your baby only to find that baby finds packaging far more interesting. Your young child just needs stimulation and a way to express their creativity, and this can be done with homemade toys as well.

Michelle Andrews, a former middle school teacher who now stays home with his three children. He wrote "Parents Guide on How to Raise a Smart Child by Choosing the Right Educational Toys." As a former teacher, he understands how critical it is to choose toys that play a significant role in childrens development. Visit his We

Vouchers --- Parents, Don't Depend On Them

Written by Joel Turtel

Continued from page 1

With state governments burdened by multi-billion-dollar deficits, what is chance that you will see a voucher program in your neighbor-hood any time soon? It might not be wise for you to wait around for such a voucher miracle.

Another problem is that even if vouchers were more widespread, private religious and secular schools simply do not have room for all students who would like to transfer out of public schools, either with state vouchers or private scholarships. According to Nora Murphy, a spokeswoman for Archdiocese of New York, private Catholic schools in New York could accommodate only 3000 new students. Yet, in September, 2002, 240,000 New York students in failing public schools qualified to transfer to a “better” public school under "No Child Left Behind Act." If all these students’ parents instead wanted vouchers for private schools (if such a voucher program existed), you see problem.

For all above reasons, parents who want to give their children a decent education now, cannot and should not depend on vouchers coming to their local neighborhood anytime soon.

Parents, don’t wait around for another fifty years while voucher advocates fight drawn-out lawsuits and fierce opposition by teacher unions, public-school bureaucrats, and entrenched education establishment. Don’t pin your hopes on state governments with huge budget deficits to create vouchers for every child in your state. Don’t risk your children’s future on state and local politicians who get campaign con-tributions from teacher unions and consistently vote against voucher programs. Depending on government authorities to come to your rescue is an exercise in futility.